Getting its act together?

A promising new opposition front is emerging

SINCE Syria's uprising began six months ago, many attempts have been made to build a broad opposition front, embracing dissidents inside and outside the country. The latest body, which calls itself the Syrian National Council and was unveiled in Turkey on October 2nd, is the most promising so far. It is a larger version of a council announced on September 15th. But it has drawn in a number of figures from a rival body, the Syrian Transitional Council, including its head, Burhan Ghalioun, a professor at the Sorbonne. The new council is likely to emerge as the main opposition. Governments hostile to the regime of President Bashar Assad may even consider recognising it as a government-in-waiting.

The Syrian National Council is to have 230 seats, 210 to be filled as soon as possible, with another 20 left open for groups that have yet to reveal themselves. There will be 75 seats for members of the original council, 55 for members of the Local Co-ordinating Committees (the bodies that have been organising protests across Syria) and 20 each for the Muslim Brotherhood, for signatories of the Damascus Declaration of 2005, for independents and for Kurds. The Assyrians, a mainly Christian ethnic group whose people speak the language closest to Christ's, will have a seat on the council's secretariat.

The composition is meant to reflect a rough balance between internal and exiled dissidents, in a ratio of six to four. Many internal members are likely to withhold their names for self-protection. After all, 13,000 protesters are behind bars and 3,000-odd people have so far been killed.

The inclusion of Mr Ghalioun and signatories of the Damascus Declaration may allay fears that the council's original membership was tilted towards Islamists, albeit of a mild variety. They included Anas Airout, a sheikh from the oil-refining city of Banias, who led protests there, plus a number of Muslim Brothers. The council lists among its ranks a number of well-known secular types: Omar Idlibi and Rami Nakhle, prominent campaigners for the Local Co-ordination Committees; Khaled Haj al-Saleh, whose brother, Yassin al-Saleh, is a respected writer; and Riad Seif, perhaps Syria's best-known veteran dissident.

Members of the new council may jostle for position. Still, it seems more professional and better organised than previously heralded groups, such as Mr Ghalioun's. The new outfit's 29-strong secretariat will be an appointed body; an executive board of seven will provide a rotating presidency that should change every few months.

The new council says Syrians of all sects must unite for a multiparty democracy. Its charter pledges to overthrow the regime rather than talk to it. This accords with the wishes of most protesters on the streets, who argue that the time for dialogue has passed. The new body also rejects foreign military intervention and insists that protests remain non-violent at a time when a growing number of Syrians seem to be taking up arms against the Assad regime, thereby lending credence to the regime's repeated claim that the opposition consists merely of “armed gangs”.

With Russia and China blocking a pro-democracy resolution in the UN Security Council on October 4th, the new lot is busily lobbying foreign governments. “We plan to open several representation offices,” says Ausama Monajed, a London-based member who hopes to set up an office in Washington, DC. Before the council expanded, he met Turkey's prime minister and foreign minister, who are letting the council open an office in Ankara. The council hopes that, once its office there is up and running, governments in other countries may offer it similar privileges. There is growing talk of calling on neighbouring countries, especially Turkey, to create “safe havens” on Syria's border, where defecting Syrian soldiers, among others, could seek refuge. But such ideas seem unlikely to bear fruit soon.

The council must go out of its way to reassure ethnic and religious minorities that the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose membership is a capital offence in Syria, is not a threat to the country's secular character. Bassma Kodmani, one of the council's spokespersons, makes this point by not wearing a hijab. The council may also need to give more of a voice to Christians (10% of Syrians) and Alawites (another 10%, to which the Assad family and many generals belong), as well as to women. It will have to show that it is not in the pocket of Turkey's mildly Islamist government. And nervousness may linger among secular-minded people that the Muslim Brothers will assert undue influence.